


To Venus and Back

by insightful_username



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Space, End of the World, Loneliness, M/M, Some Swearing, Strangers to Lovers, Trapped in space, baekhyun is a freelance artist, chanyeol gets off on car parts, high school literature is mentioned, it's for valentine's day, it's supposed to be cute, lol save me, makes no sense, no research was actually done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 21:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insightful_username/pseuds/insightful_username
Summary: A world where the moon no longer rises with the ebbing sunlight. And the sun fades fast. They meet on an escape pod to Venus, hoping to make it to solid land instead of the cloudy marsh and dry land of the pictures.





	To Venus and Back

It should’ve alarmed them more when the days grew shorter and shorter. It was the dead of autumn, fading quickly into winter. No one cared, not even the other hemisphere. Climate change, they said despite it not making sense. 

 

But nothing ever made sense. It was all too robotic, and not just with the ghost cars driving themselves to eternity with no destination in mind, or the bright white that replaced the need for ugly grey concrete, or even the floatation devices that carried people through town like Aladdin’s flying rug. No, it spanned deeper than that. Everything seemed too corporal; no one acted like an individual, they all acted as a collective group. When the leader’s elegant face splayed onto the display of a building-wide display or the wall-wide displays of homes, everyone complied without a second thought. 

 

“We have been faced with an issue,” the leader had said, “The disappearance of our sky is nothing more than a myth. We are merely experiencing a shift in our system. Our planet Earth is malfunctioning with our most recent wave of climate change, and we are working hard to aid in its recovery. Please understand that—”

 

Chanyeol turned the T.V. off, it was nothing more than excuses to deter any possible thought of rebellion against this tyranny disguised as a pretty monarchy. He packed his bag that night, determined to get off the planet before it killed him first. 

 

But the alarm bells beat him to it. They cut through the night brightened only by the gross pink-grey of light pollution and urged everyone to go. Without a second thought, he hopped into the first space pod he saw, not doubting for a second that their Earth was mere moments from destruction. 

 

There was a tenseness that filled the air and spanned between his uninvited entrance and after the pod shot up from the surface of the Earth. Once they were floating up in space, however, was when the other person already occupying it decided to speak.

 

“Who are you?” a gracelessly rude timbre from a gentle and raspy voice. The other man was frowning at him as they drifted along in zero gravity.

 

“Chanyeol,” he said as if just his first name made up for his intrusion.

 

“Well,” the other cocked his head in a short twitch, annoyance evident without speaking more than ten words, “ Chanyeol, why are you here?”

 

“Because Earth is dying from the outside in?”

 

The smaller male sucked in a breath, “But that doesn’t explain why you’re in my pod.”

 

Chanyeol frowned, not ready to deal with an annoying roommate he’s have to spend what would feel like an eternity with, “It doesn’t have your name on it..?”

 

“So? You shoulda seen that someone was already in here.”

 

“And then what? Die with the rest of the world?”

 

Chanyeol knew he was being rude, but it wasn’t unprompted. The other looked ready to throw a fit. But as it all faded to defeat, the other man sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets like a sulking child after having been yelled at by a superior. 

 

“Fine, but only ‘cause Ma didn’t raise a cunt,” Chanyeol never actively tried to imagine how hillbillies actually sounded after having seen them on television, but he never for a second thought they existed in his part of town. He used to think they were a figment of modern authors’ imaginations as they tried to shamble together only semi-cohesive storylines for a taste of the cash so many others got for the occupation. He blamed it on his age at the time, and that was what he was sticking by, even to this day.

 

“Yeah,” he all but breathed out, “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

 

A semblance of a smile was affixed to the man’s face as he laughed bitterly, “I’m not fuckin’ deaf  _ or _ blind, let’s just, I dunno, talk, I guess.”

 

“About what?”

 

“I dunno,” the man repeated, “What you did before this whole shitshow broke loose?”

 

“I was kind of an engineer,” it was a decorated term for someone who dived into car dumps for old car parts to make ultimately worse versions of whatever they were scrapped from, “I was also a musician for a bit, but it took a lot out of me, so I just quit. What about you?”

 

“I did art, yannow? Whatever you think of when it comes to art, I prolly did it.”

 

“Really?” Chanyeol had asked, shuffling to shove his things in the other room on board before he lost everything to zero gravity. He allowed to silence to drag on as he moved faster. “And what’s your name?” 

 

“Baekhyun? Why, wanna steal my identity?”

 

“I just wanted to see if the name rang a bell,” Chanyeol clarified, before adding on in confusion, “There’d also be no reason to steal your identity anyway. Especially if you’re the only other person I know is alive right now.”

 

“Jesus, I never took you to be so prissy.”

 

“That’s just how I was raised.”

 

“I’m sure we were born and raised in the same area so that doesn’t make sense,” Baekhyun acted like a child, bounding over to Chanyeol with a glint in his eye.

 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

 

It was actually an amazing record. Even though he didn’t know what time it was, or even how long it’s been since they’d taken off, it’d taken a long time for the awkward silence to kick in. 

 

“Alright, Imma go to bed. Holler if you need anything.”

 

And with that, Chanyeol was all alone again.

 

~~

 

_ “It was a pleasure to burn.” _

 

He didn’t think he’d ever have to read those words again after he’d graduated from high school. He especially didn’t expect to read it for what felt like hundreds of times because a few of his old high school mandated books were tucked in the deepest corners of his suitcase. It really occupied his time, his shitty annotations, not the actual content of the books. 

 

The emphasis he put on that quote was so momentous, he would’ve thought the world was ending early into his sophomore year rather than right now. 

 

“Hey, nerd,” Baekhyun popped his head into the doorway of Chanyeol’s glorified three-sided canopy bed, “I found out how to turn the gravity on, or whatever.”

 

“Yeah, I could tell,” Chanyeol felt it when his book crashed into his face after both he and his things fell onto the impressively uncomfortable bed not too long ago. 

 

“So,” Baekhyun said after a bit, “Wanna do something with me?”

 

Chanyeol deadpanned, his mouth pulled back as neutral as possible, “There’s nothing  _ to _ do.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s gotta be better than that stupid book you’re reading. Now c’mon.”

 

To say Chanyeol didn’t want to go was an understatement, but it beat sitting around on his ass and doing nothing. It was better than eventually crying himself to sleep at the inevitability of his and Baekhyun’s deaths and at just how alone he was.

 

~~

 

He was on his one-hundred and twenty-sixth readthrough of his series of high school books. They were floating again, and it startled him just as much as when they stimulated an artificial gravity. 

 

As he floated around to stretch his long limbs out, he couldn’t help but to hear a gentle sob crash through the tentative silence like a baseball to his old house’s window. He peered into Baekhyun’s chamber and saw the man bawling into a pillow. His ineptitude only made the situation more awkward, so as to break the uncomfortable noisiness, he cleared his throat and spoke, “Baekhyun?”

 

“Hey,” Baekhyun said shakily, his voice thick with tears, but speaking as if he were greeting a close friend at a skatepark. 

 

“Are you okay?” Chanyeol asked tentatively. 

 

“Yeah,” despite his reassuring word, his entire gait and appearance said anything but that.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Look, we’re going to be together for honestly,” he pretended to count the fingers on his hands as if to emphasize his point, “a fuck ton of years, so I’m not going to care just because you’re crying.”

 

He was sure if the man wasn’t crying, Baekhyun would’ve laughed at his swearing. But in the same brusque tone he imagined, the man said anything but that, “Of course it’s because of this stupid ass hellhole.”

 

“Would you have preferred dying on Earth?”

 

Baekhyun didn’t speak. It left the entire vehicle uncomfortably quiet, leaving the uneven tempo between the rests of the terse silence.

 

“Well?”

 

Chanyeol shouldn't have tried to force Baekhyun to speak, but the quiet sent steadily growing nerves fluttering to his stomach in a beeline. It was a trepidation prolonged by his ennuis and his burning curiosity. He was left blind by it, not only by the feeling, but the alarmingly slow punch being thrown his way. He felt the impact of a small fist, then the jarring of his body as Baekhyun fell into him.

 

“I wanna die so badly,” Baekhyun said so weakly and so shakily, Chanyeol almost wouldn’t have been able to hear it if not for the man’s mouth being mere inches from his sensitive ears. He didn’t want to believe it, yet it felt so real coming from betwixt Baekhyun’s small lips, “But here I am, with you.”

 

There was a bitter silence comparable to that of the vacuum out in space, “Is that a bad thing?” Chanyeol asked without even thinking. He briefly bit his tongue, winced in regret, and frowned.

 

“No!” Baekhyun paused, “I’d honestly just go insane, prolly off myself in here without any warrant to do so.”

 

Chanyeol didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even properly trained in the art of communicating regularly with normal people, so he sure as hell wasn’t ready to deal with a fairly new, crying, acquaintance. He spoke a careful, “I think you’re so great,” and even though it was a partial lie on his part, he still believed his skills in lying would make him believe it’s the truth. 

 

“Bull—” despite the tears, Baekhyun dramatically paused, “—Shit. You and I both know how fucking terrible I am to you.”

 

“I like hanging out with you,” Chanyeol confessed, hoping the red rising to his cheeks would prove to be from his words and not anything else.

 

“Sure you do,” the shorter man sniffled, and scooted closer to Chanyeol, hugging the lanky man with his equally skinny arms, “But thanks for trying. I needed this.”

 

Chanyeol had to ignore the red rising in his cheeks.

 

~~

 

“Are we there yet?” mood swings, Chanyeol realized, were worse than his crippling loneliness. At least he felt the same constant state of nothingness. Baekhyun, on the other hand, had lows that just about incapacitated him and highs that made them shoot for the sun. Between the sadness that encapsulated him in a clear plastic orb and left him out in the sun and the rainbow after a rainy day, Chanyeol didn’t understand where childlike petulance fit into it. 

 

“No, we’re still getting there,” he also didn’t understand why their phones could practically withstand anything other than the tests of time, but their escape pod was chugging along at a snail’s pace in the darkness. 

 

He was almost concerned when he looked out the window made from the strong, reinforced glass and saw Earth off miles and miles away. He teetered on the line between concern and indifference when he saw the formerly green, blue, and white planet erupt in a deep ashy color. He fell over the edge when Baekhyun hopped up next to him.

 

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Baekhyun looked to his face, concernedly scanning him for signs of insanity.

 

“Jesus, get your eyes off’a me,” Chanyeol didn’t like how easily he was adopting Baekhyun’s natural way of speaking, but it was so much less restrained and held back than his usual way of speaking. But there was no way in hell he was admitting it. In addendum, he pulled an old-fashioned accent, probably dating back to the late nineteen-hundreds, and spoke again, “If you’d kindly direct your eyes to that rock out there, you’ll see that it’s burning in the pits of hell.”

 

“Oh—oh wow, that’s Earth?”

 

“No,” Chanyeol began, sarcastically, “That’s Mars.”

 

“Whoa, really?”

 

“What? No, of course not,” Chanyeol shook his head. He let the silence fester for a bit longer as they looked out the window and at the ashy planet. He felt Baekhyun’s lithe frame brush up against his, they were so close. 

 

He didn’t know if watching the planet he’d lived on for all of his life up until what felt like several weeks ago was romantic or anything like that, but he felt so close and comfortable with Baekhyun, it left a warm and fuzzy feeling inside him. He wanted to kiss the man, but he needed to wait. He wasn’t ready yet.

 

They never taught him about romance in his stupid high school literature, but he’s sure it wasn’t hard.

 

~~

 

And wrong he was. This new sense of romanticism directed to Baekhyun was so foreign, he’d nearly shit himself just thinking about it. 

 

“Do you think we’ll make it?” they were resuming their actions of staring out the window as they sped through the darkness.

 

“Yeah,” he didn’t believe it. He already felt years older than he was when they started their journey and they still weren’t there.

 

“Don’t lie to me,” Baekhyun said accusingly, though his voice never gained in volume or valor.

 

“I… I don’t know. I kinda don’t want to know.”

 

“I get what’cha mean, but it’s scary, eh?” 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, we don’t even know if we’re moving. We can’t see Earth anymore and nothing’s happening.”

 

“Hey, hey now. Don’t go crying on me again,” Chanyeol tried, attempting to lighten the mood.

 

“Jeez, could you just let it go?”

 

They both let out a soft chuckle, though the mood darkened again with the ink of their fears in the cold, dark air. 

 

“What’ll happen when we actually make it there? There’s no possible way it’s any more habitable than Earth,” Baekhyun muttered out.

 

“Yeah, but it’s better than dying out here alone.”

 

“We’re not alone; at least we won’t die alone.”

 

“You’re right, but hey, here’s hoping for a prosperous life on… where are we going again?”

 

“I’m pretty sure we’re headed for Venus.” Baekhyun shrugged with his words/

 

“Oh right. Sorry, I tuned out all the T.V. broadcasts about whatever the fuck it was that happened.”

 

Another minute hush before their conversation headed away from them like walking a rowdy dog through a fork in the road. 

 

“Would you like to, if we die, die with me?” Baekhyun bent down on one knee, holding out a ring box, still floating around in the air of the ship.

 

Understanding what this entailed, Chanyeol acted shocked and cupped his hands over his mouth, “Omigosh! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

 

They went in for an embrace, still as if they’d just been engaged. Baekhyun slipped the ring in the box onto Chanyeol’s fingers. They almost went in for the kiss before, “I was gonna propose before this all happened, so, might as well use this for something.”

 

It sent his heart aflame, and burned him until he was the same ash all over the planet Earth. 

 

_ “It was a pleasure to burn.” _

 

~~

 

He felt so stupid for almost letting his feelings get the better of him. Because of it, he’d been cooped up in his small room, staring at the delicate ring Baekhyun slipped onto his calloused finger. It was such an impressively detailed filigree band that he wondered where Baekhyun’s significant other was instead of being in the ship instead of him. It made him feel even less experienced than before.

 

Loneliness, he knew had the power to destroy even the strongest of towers, yet it’d never bothered him more until this moment where he’d never felt so alone. It was scarily new to him, though far less so than his new lust for love.

 

“Hey, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun spoke gently through the long silence, “I think we’re almost there.”

 

To be fair, Chanyeol never thought they’d get anywhere close to Venus. This was understanding that they’d just barely gotten to Mars and never even bothered trying with Earth’s sister planet. But they were approaching the less foggy surface of Venus and onto surprisingly flat land.

 

The confidence he worked up for  _ this being the moment _ was so pent up inside of him, it deflated into nothing.

 

“Baekhyun.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I love you.”

 

It wasn’t him that initiated the kiss, it was Baekhyun. And as they felt the gravity shift to Venus’, they went deeper.

 

“I love you too, to Venus and back.”

 

~~

 

They weren’t sure how long they’d been on the planet, they sure as hell felt the winds that wracked their bodies dry through their space suits and managed to make them feel cold. And as they waited with the other few people that survived, they managed to pack up all their belongings again and waited until someone would eventually come and rescue them. 

 

And that eventually became now when a comically large spaceship landed a fair amount away from them. Chanyeol, far too used to his sedimentary life, barely made it while Baekhyun practically carried him there. 

 

He was impressed at how well the smaller man’s body had adapted to the gravity of Venus after having been in space for a long while. His legs were jelly and still was jelly to the day the ship landed. 

 

And as they entered, with Baekhyun plastered to his side, Chanyeol felt so much less lonely than when the entire population of billions of people were still alive. The ten some people that survived made him feel more welcomed than he ever had. 

 

They were surviving. And Chanyeol was finally thriving. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> edit: the publication date has been moved back to february fourteenth because i posted it so late, it said the fifteenth instead.


End file.
